Anderson Cooper Biography
Anderson Cooper is a broadcast journalist and political commentator from the United States. He is the primary anchor of CNN’s news program Anderson Cooper 360°. Cooper works as a correspondent for CBS News’ 60 Minutes in addition to his duties at CNN.
Anderson Cooper Age
Anderson is 54 years old as of 2021. He was born Anderson Hays Cooper on 3 June 1967 in New York, New York, United States.
Anderson Cooper Height and Weight
Anderson stands at a height of 5 feet 10 inches (1.77 m) and weighs 70 kg (154 lbs).
Anderson Cooper Education
Cooper attended the Dalton School, a private co-educational university preparatory day school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Cooper, then 17, went on a “survival trip” around Africa for several months after graduating from Dalton a semester early. During the trip, he became ill with malaria and was hospitalized in Kenya. Cooper described the experience as “a place to forget and be forgotten in.” Cooper went to Yale University and lived in Trumbull College. He was inducted into the Manuscript Society after majoring in political science and receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1989.
Cooper studied political science in college and worked as an intern at the Central Intelligence Agency for two summers. He pursued journalism despite having no formal journalism education and describes himself as a “news junkie since [he] was in utero.” Following his initial correspondence work in the early 1990s, he took a year off from reporting to study the Vietnamese language at Vietnam National University in Hanoi.
Anderson Cooper Family
Cooper is the younger son of Wyatt Emory Cooper, an author, screenwriter, and actor, and Gloria Vanderbilt, an artist, fashion designer, writer, and heiress. Reginald’s maternal grandparents were Vanderbilt family millionaire equestrian Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt and socialite Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, and Reginald’s patrilineal great-grandfather was business magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who founded the prominent Vanderbilt shipping and railroad fortune.
Cooper has two older half-brothers from Gloria Vanderbilt’s ten-year marriage to conductor Leopold Stokowski, Leopold Stanislaus “Stan” Stokowski (b. 1950), and Christopher Stokowski (b. 1952). Cooper made an appearance in Henry Louis Gates’ Finding Your Roots in 2014, where he discovered an ancestor, Burwell Boykin, who was a slave owner from the southern United States.
He is also a descendant of Civil War brevet Major General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, who accompanied General William Tecumseh Sherman on his march through Georgia, through his mother. He is a second cousin once removed of screenwriter James Vanderbilt through his maternal line. Wyatt died on January 5, 1978, at the age of 50, after suffering a series of heart attacks while undergoing open-heart surgery.
Anderson Cooper Brother
Carter Vanderbilt Cooper, Cooper’s older brother, committed suicide on July 22, 1988, at the age of 23, by jumping from the 14th-floor terrace of Vanderbilt’s New York City penthouse apartment. Gloria Vanderbilt later wrote about her son’s death in the book A Mother’s Story, expressing her belief that the suicide was caused by a psychotic episode brought on by an allergy to the anti-asthmatic prescription drug salbutamol. Anderson attributes his interest in journalism to Carter’s suicide.
Anderson Cooper Partner
Cooper is openly gay, and The New York Times describes him as “the most prominent openly gay journalist on American television.” Cooper avoided discussing his personal life in interviews for many years. However, on July 2, 2012, he granted Andrew Sullivan permission to publish an email in which he stated, in part. Cooper and his partner purchased Rye House, a historic estate in Connecticut, in 2014. Cooper and his long-term boyfriend Benjamin Maisani announced their breakup in March 2018.
Cooper announced the birth of his son Wyatt Morgan via surrogate on April 30, 2020. Cooper and Maisani are no longer romantically involved, but they intend to co-parent. Wyatt is named after Cooper’s late father, Wyatt Cooper, and his middle name comes from his Vanderbilt ancestors, being the maiden name of his maternal grandmother Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt.
Anderson Cooper Channel One
Cooper attempted but failed to obtain entry-level employment with ABC answering phones after graduating from Yale. Cooper, who was having difficulty getting his foot in the door of on-air reporting, decided to enlist the help of a friend in creating a bogus press pass. Cooper was working as a fact-checker for Channel One, a small news agency that produces a youth-oriented news program that is broadcast to many junior high and high schools across the United States at the time. Cooper then entered Myanmar on his own, armed with a forged press pass, to meet with students protesting the Burmese government. He eventually sold his homemade news segments to Channel One.
Cooper spent a year in Vietnam after reporting from Myanmar to study the Vietnamese language at the University of Hanoi. Cooper soon began filming and assembling reports of Vietnamese life and culture that aired on Channel One after persuading Channel One to allow him to bring a Hi8 camera with him. In 1992, he resumed filming stories from war-torn countries around the world, including Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda.
Anderson Cooper ABC- CNN
Cooper joined ABC News as a correspondent in 1995, eventually rising to the position of co-anchor on the network’s overnight World News Now program on September 21, 1999. In 2000, he changed careers, becoming the host of ABC’s reality show The Mole.
Cooper also filled in as a co-host for Regis Philbin on the TV talk show Live with Regis and Kelly in 2007 while Philbin was undergoing triple-bypass heart surgery. As of 2019, he still serves as a guest co-host on Live when one of the two hosts is unable to work. Cooper left The Mole after the second season to pursue a career in broadcast news. In 2001, he joined CNN, saying, “Two seasons was enough, and then 9/11 happened, and I thought I was done.”
“Two seasons was enough, and 9/11 happened, and I thought I needed to be getting back to news,” he said when he joined CNN in 2001. His first job at CNN was as an anchor on American Morning with Paula Zahn. He was named CNN’s weekend prime-time anchor in 2002. He has hosted CNN’s New Year’s Eve special from Times Square since 2002.
Anderson Cooper Net Worth
Cooper has an estimated net worth of $200 million.
Anderson Cooper Salary
He earns an annual salary of $12 million.
